Chris Smith MP, the former Culture Secretary, is to launch INTERFACE - the University of Ulster’s new flagship £9 million art and technology-design initiative - in Belfast on Tuesday 23 November.

Mr Smith served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 1997-2001. He has retained a high national profile as an advocate of the need for fostering strong arts leadership and for investment that links arts policy and practice to wider social needs. Last year he was appointed Founding Director of the influential Clore Cultural Leadership Programme, which explores ways of nurturing the arts leaders of tomorrow.

Declan McGonagle, Director, INTERFACE - the Centre for Research in Art Technologies and Design - said the former cabinet minister’s agreement to launch the venture underscored its stature and highlighted its potential.

Professor McGonagle, a leading figure in the development of international contemporary art, holds a Chair in Art and Design at the University of Ulster's Belfast campus, where INTERFACE is based.

INTERFACE is already in talks with two Belfast community projects on how to use art and new technology to bring new perspectives to the foreboding "Peaceline" and helping vulnerable teenagers.

Mr Smith will give a wide-ranging address touching on the relationship between art and society, the need for more effective arts leadership - and his hopes that INTERFACE will break new ground in its mission.

Professor McGonagle said: "It is a huge pleasure - and a coup - for INTERFACE to have Chris Smith come over for the launch. In his current job, he is actively promoting the pivotal importance of vibrant arts leadership - for the artist and the community. His launching of INTERFACE is a tremendous boost and underlines not just the goodwill but the expectation that is out there about this unique enterprise."

INTERFACE aims to have art and design play a vital role in community development in Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland. Its activities will stretch into deprived areas, drawing the community and artists together. It will also create new design processes that will benefit textiles, other industries and modern high-technology sectors.

"We will be engaged in doing research into new ways of working, opening up new avenues of how to link artwork, fine art, design and modern technology and connecting them at many different levels to the community, industry and the economy," Professor McGonagle said.

The inaugural ceremony will be attended by more than 120 people from a wide range of official agencies, arts, development, academic and community organisations.

"We are developing projects with the Greater Shankill Partnership with a view to activating a programme of new art work on the Peaceline. It may start using traditional artforms involving murals and suchlike but over a long term we could see INTERFACE moving into using other new forms of technologies and materials.

"We are also in discussions with the Ashton Centre in the New Lodge about extending into new areas of activity.  Their existing projects for young people are at risk. That could involve the use of new technologies that will become available when our new photographic and other laboratories come on stream.

"INTERFACE is about inclusion and we are committed to ensuring that communities feel the benefit of our work."

INTERFACE will build on the School of Art and Design’s long-standing record of academic and research expertise in fine art and textile-technology. INTERFACE’s fine art research is led by is Professor Kerstin Mey. Karen Fleming, a Reader in Textiles, heads the textile-technology element.

Professor Mey said: "INTERFACE is about exploring the role and potential of cultural practices to establish a language and a dialogue that is not already entrenched in any of the communities and to aid the process of negotiation. That is a vital element of INTERFACE’s engagement with diverse social and cultural agents and constituencies."

INTERFACE will also explore new design synergies in textiles. "Using the latest technological resources together with existing capabilities and skills, we will challenge and extend conventional textile processes and purposes," said Karen Fleming. "The focus is on customised and tailored solutions to meet global challenges. In doing that, INTERFACE will be making a major contribution to the inter-relationship of design, industry and art here."

The initiative is funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Northern Ireland Department of Employment and Learning under the SPUR II programme.

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young